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So, I haven’t done one of these “so” things in a while, and I just saw the trailers for a few movies, and I want to talk about them because I am excited about them, even though like most movies released in the past few years I likely won’t see them because I have no time ever.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Just a tease really: you get to see an X-wing, the Millennium Falcon, and a couple of other cool things. I saw some people who were talking about how it’s good a black person is in the trailer. And that seems kinda silly to me. I hope he’s just in the stormtrooper outfit as a disguise, though, because I have the same problem with a black stormtrooper as I had with women and aliens being in the Empire’s military. It just doesn’t fit. Part of the evil was that everyone was a strong white dude. And the rebels had strong white dudes, strong black dudes, strong women, and strong aliens. Making the Empire more inclusive makes them less evil. My thought was “oh, a black guy in a stormtrooper outfit… wait, aren’t stormtroopers bad guys?”

Jurassic World. I have the same problem with this trailer as I had with the military dinosaurs idea that was being tossed around quite a few years ago, when I had a site like “jurassicpark4rumors.com” bookmarked. I looked at it every day because I love the movies, and the books, and just everything about it in general. I’m not too sure about the genetically modified dinosaur, but that’s more in execution than a problem as part of both the books and movies was that they didn’t faithfully recreate the dinosaurs and that caused problems. I will have to wait and see if they do the trained raptors well. They could be great, but they could also be awful, and I like the idea of at least someone realizing, (what was the point of the books?), that making dinosaurs and meddling around with DNA for profit is a bad idea.

Terminator Genisys. As an action movie, this looks awesome. As an addition to the Terminator franchise, it looks better than 3 or 4, which both made the points of the previous movies entirely moot for different reasons. It’s weird how each Terminator movie is in almost a different genre. Terminator was horror, Judgement Day was action and suspense, Rise of the Machines was action comedy, and Salvation was post-apocalyptic. We forgot the aesthetic and point of the entire series. I wouldn’t say Salvation was a bad movie (I have a hard time saying that about any movie) but it did miss the point. This one looks like it will still screw with the point of the end of 2, which was that everything was final, and that things could get better if we were better prepared, and maybe machines could be empathetic, and it was uplifting and optimistic. And 3 just threw that away. So now we have this one, and I hope it at least references the previous movies in an entertaining and well-written way.

Okay, let me back up. It was the morning of Independence Day (U.S.) and I was sleeping late because two days earlier I had been plagued with terrible headaches and I didn’t want that to repeat. So I was getting up at around 10, or at least that was my plan. I had been in a semiconscious state for about ten minutes when I heard a crash. I then heard my Mom calling a name I recognized as a cat. (The cat isn’t ours but she insisted on calling him ‘Mike’) After I heard some more thumping for a few moments, I got up, descended my ladder, and walked into the living room. One the floor was a shattered CD case of an MST3K recording and several books. I continued out to the kitchen where my Mother informed me that ‘Mike’ had gotten in and was being chased around the house by our indoor cat. As I entered, Mother was able to shut the pantry door, trapping him on what was once a back porch. She left to go around and open the back door, I decided the simpler thing to do was to open the door carefully and then open the back, which I did, but not before the cat ran to the other side of the room and tucked himself into the corner.

After several minutes with the back door open we declared him out and closed it. Inspecting things to see what had fallen over, I found that ‘Mike’ was still very much tucked in the corner next to the water heater. After obtaining some gloves and opening the back door, I tried to gently pick him up and put him outside. He did not agree with this plan. The second my hand got near him he began jumping like a flea straight up the wall. After several unsuccessful jumps he managed to grab onto the water heater’s edge. How I have no idea, because, if you’ve ever seen a water heater you know, there’s nowhere to grab. After a few awkward dangling moments he was on top. From my now inferior position I tried to coax him toward the door. Instead he looked in the other direction and found the corner between the wall and the heater. As I reached to block the hole, and hopefully push him down, he decided ‘bombs away’ and jumped head first into said hole.

So now we had a trapped cat. Looking through a small space between the heater and wall revealed an eye, and some ear twitching. At this moment we had to wake my Father, who would know how to shut off the water. It turned into shutting off the water to the whole house due to the fact that the heater has no cutoff. We then drained the heater, which took the better part of an hour.

The problem with an empty water heater is that there is still no good way to move it. Especially if it’s as shoddily worked into an old shoddy house as mine. The house was done well, but to say the utilities weren’t is an understatement. Anyway, we had to disconnect the water and the gas, and even then there were several unbendable pipes that allowed for virtually no movement on the part of the heater. After fifteen minutes we managed to move the bottom enough so that ‘Mike’ could turn right-side up. At this point we decided to let him jump up on his own, so we put a board in under him (he was already standing on the trim) and moved it slowly up. He jumped just above it each time until he was again on the top of the heater.

At this point I backed away having seen this very afraid cat leap up into windows, claws bared, about an hour ago. My Father, however, reached for him, I assume to pick him up. At this point he exploded into a ball of kitty fury and somehow landed on the floor. As I quickly scooted out of the way he burst past me and out the back door.

This was not how I wanted to spend the morning of the Fourth. But I assume it wasn’t how ‘Mike’ wanted to, either. I think however, unfortunately, it is safe to say, we won’t be seeing him any time soon. Probably for good reason. (Unfortunately as well, I got no pictures)

So… I really like Pandemic. And they recently released and new version. I was interested to see it, but not too excited, as I really like the old version. I can now definitely say that I don’t like the new version. Not because there is any change in gameplay, or anything to make the actual playing of the game any less amazing.

The first problem comes with compatibility: there is none. The new version and new expansions are completely incompatible with the old version and the old version of the expansion. I can see no reason why this has to be. Especially since I quite like the older board as you will see shortly. It just alienates older fans and makes it so people who own the older game are less likely to get the new expansions. I have no idea why they would do this, especially since the old version was almost perfectly serviceable in terms of design.

However my main problem is in the look of the new version. It’s too dark. I’m not sure why everything has to be so dark these days, but it would seem Pandemic is following suit. The board looks more drab and black. It doesn’t look nearly as fun, it doesn’t even look like the world. The last board was perfectly playable and even inviting, this is dark and off-putting. The cards have been redesigned and now they’re harder to read and it’s harder to understand where they represent on the board. The character artwork is now more “realistic” but it too conveys that unnecessary darkness.

I’m not saying that an epidemic spreading around the globe is funny, but the game didn’t need to be darkened. The last set was pleasing to look at and made you excited to play. This almost looks like the map to a zombie game rather than Pandemic.

I just don’t see why it needs this. I’m not a fan of the darkness that invades everything these days. Why does everything have to be so dark, especially escapist things like board games? The cartoony artwork, pleasant green and blue board, and simple aesthetic made Pandemic more fun in my opinion. I realize that they can change anything they want to, but I don’t like their changes to the game, and I certainly won’t be getting the new version or any new expansions.

So I was hitting myself in the face with a golf club. I’m not sure why, I think someone paid me to do it. I don’t remember now. I then started wandering off to the green. I fell down and stared at the sky, wondering just why I had been hitting myself in the face. For the first time, I realized just how many options I had. I realized I could have not hit myself in the face, I could have hit someone else in the face. I could have jumped off the cliff near the green.

There were so many possible things I could do. So many possible paths in life, each one infinitely affecting every other process in the universe. I rolled over and stared at the grass. If I had decided to pluck enough of it it might die. And then some grass feeding animal in the future might die, or have to go to a greener pasture. And that animal going to that greener pasture might displace some other animal which would create a travel trail, and then someone might follow it a build a house. And who even knows what could happen from there.

I was amazed at the possibilities. I got up and looked around. All the different worlds that could happen from the most minor of decisions. I ran to find someone, anyone to tell them about my new enlightenment. But no one was there. That was no problem. I knew how much I affected the world now. How much each and every decision I and everyone else made affected the very fabric of everything.

I ran off. I knew everything now. I could see the future that I could create. It was a wonderful feeling.

Man, people should hit themselves in the face with golf clubs more often.

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